Meanwhile, the loaded truck pulled up beside a tractorless semitrailer and dumped its cargo of glass into a big hopper at one end.
“It’s some kind of industrial operation,” Mildred said. “Though what they could want with chunks of Slake City, I can’t imagine. The invaders must be hard up if they’re trying to use stickies as slaves.”
“Hard up or just plain dim,” J.B. said. “Everybody knows you can’t train stickies to do anything. Their instinct gets in the way. All they want to do is eat, fuck and chill.”
The bulkhead door in the big dome swung inward, and ten black armored troopers rushed out on a dead run.
“Uh-oh,” Dean said.
Ryan leaned close and said, “Our hands and legs are free. Stay focused, son.”
Standing between the ten running battlesuits and the body bags were several troopers who were guarding the seated captives. The guards’ counterparts bore down on them so quickly they didn’t have time to get out of the way. Instead of going around the immobile grunts, the newcomers shoved. And when they shoved, the troopers’ battlesuits offered them no protection. The guards’ boot soles left the ground and they flew aside, crashing to earth with arms and legs spread wide. The troopers who had narrowly missed being bowled over backed warily away.
The ten newcomers paid no attention to the men they had knocked senseless. They surrounded the body bag with the she-he in it. Dropping to their knees in the dirt, they removed their gauntlets and their helmets. From their speed and strength Ryan already suspected that they were she-hes; seeing their heads confirmed it. They had the same rugged bone structure, the same nearly shaved skulls as the dead thing in the bag.
The bag’s zipper was drawn down to reveal the devastated face.
Tenderly, they slipped off the dead one’s gauntlets. Then each put a cheek to the already cold fingers.
Ryan could see the tears streaming down their faces, but the only sound was the low grinding noise coming from the semitrailer’s hopper. The other, presumably male troopers were giving the she-hes plenty of room to express their grief.
After a few minutes, the officers rose to their feet and turned to confront the captives. At a silent signal, troopers seized Ryan by the arms and dragged him away from the others. He was thrown facedown in the dirt before ten pairs of gleaming black boots.
“I remember you, Ryan Cawdor,” said the figure looming over him. “Do you remember me? Dredda Otis Trask?”
Ryan squinted up at a face he vaguely recalled. “You were one of the CEOs of FIVE,” he said. “I saw you on a vid screen. You and the others asked me questions about Deathlands.”
“Disaster seems to follow wherever you go, Shadow Man. The loss of our dear sister Kira is impossible to measure. She was a resource that can never be replaced. My other sisters want to beat you to death, here and now. But I am in charge. And I have to look past the simple and the pleasurable answers. My responsibility is to our future.” She gestured to the troopers. “Bring him inside. Manacle the others.”
Ryan was jerked to his feet and hauled across the compound toward the big dome. He didn’t struggle as the troopers pushed him through the bulkhead door, which opened onto an anteroom intersected by numerous tubular corridors. The light source was a strip of material that ran like a spinal cord along the top of the hallways. He was marched a short distance, then left alone in a room with the former CEO.
The chamber was dark gray in color. The only decoration was the light strip across the ceiling. The Spartan furnishings consisted of a cot, a rack for a battlesuit, a tier of electronic machinery and a tall silver tank with a locking wheel on the lid.
Dredda set her helmet and gauntlets on the cot.
Seeing the former CEO up close from behind, Ryan was amazed at the breadth of the base of her neck. It formed a wide triangle of muscle that tapered only slightly as it climbed the back of her skull.